France’s presidential election

Communists v Socialists

The Mélenchon conundrum

THE received wisdom in Paris is that Jean-Luc Mélenchon's remarkable campaign is bad news for François Hollande. As Mr Mélenchon has surged ahead in the polls, and into third place in the first round, Mr Hollande's numbers have dropped back. But I wonder if this is right. Could Mr Mélenchon's dazzling performance actually be helpful for Mr Hollande?

At first glance, this seems absurd. Mr Mélenchon's rise in the polls, which began in mid-February, has almost exactly mirrored Mr Hollande's decline. The Communists' candidate has jumped from 9% to 15%, while the Socialists' has dropped from 32% to 28%. As a result, Mr Hollande has lost any sense of momentum.

With the clenched fists, the sea of red flags at his rallies and the singing of the "Internationale", the fiery Mr Mélenchon has managed to excite crowds, and stir passions and utopian dreams in a way that only underlines Mr Hollande's rather staid approach. Mr Hollande can do hot-blooded on occasion: his rousing speech at Le Bourget, when he declared war on the “world of finance”, launched him as a plausible presidential candidate. But he is more often perceived as a man of moderation, the “normal” candidate to contrast with the extravagant Nicolas Sarkozy. And this hardly makes for an inspiring campaign.

But could it be that Mr Mélenchon is actually doing the passion job for him? Clémentine Autain, Mr Mélenchon's spokeswoman, said on the radio the other day that: “We will call for a victory over Sarkozy, and we will vote for the left-wing candidate who is in the lead”. His voters are the very ones who might otherwise have abstained at this election. As it is, polling agencies predict a low turnout compared with 2007. By rallying the disillusioned on the left in the first round, and then calling on them to back Mr Hollande in the second, Mr Mélenchon might actually turn out to be an asset for the Socialist candidate.

The real question then becomes this: what price his support? The higher Mr Mélenchon's first-round score, the stronger his hand. For now, the Socialists have signed an electoral deal only with the Greens, who under Eva Joly have dropped off the radar screen at the presidential election (latest polls give her just 1.5%).

Mr Mélenchon's Left Front could either demand a legislative deal, ahead of parliamentary elections in June, to ensure that it can form a bloc in the next assembly. Or it might ask for policy concessions, and ministerial jobs. Given that Mr Mélenchon's programme contains such measures as an immediate 20% rise in the minimum wage, a 100% tax rate on earnings over €360,000 and a withdrawal of France from NATO, this could lead to some pretty tense negotiations on the evening of April 22nd.

But the domestic industry couldn't react properly to the sudden demand and they simply raised prices, but couldn't really deliver much more. The enterprices where additionally burdeoned by high interest rates and new fees and taxes so they also didn't invest.

...but companies abroad where ready to deliver. A big part of the new demand went into import.

The trade balance became very negative, notably with Germany.

The socialists started printing money what set in motion a vicious circle of inflation, high interest rates, imports and devaluations of the Franc.

In the end they even imposed capital controls. Only 30 years ago French could only take 2000 Franc per adult per year abroad!!

It is hard to believe, but the socialists even dictated in this inflationary environment that car prices could not be increased by more than 7.5 per cent. Car companies could no longer cope with the rising wage and other costs in addition to the frequent strikes and quality problems due to socialist unions gone mad, they got money injections.

One of the main beneficiary of all this stupidity was Germany by the way. Exports to France soared and the Franc was substantially devalued (part of the agreement with the French was that at the same time the DM was revalued to safe them from humiliation), so that holidays and everything French got cheaper for Germans.

After 2 years of this madness France embraced exactly l'austérité the socialists had railed against before.

It is inconceivable to me why the French have the desire to repeat exactly this with Mélenchon and Hollande. - But this time in much worse circumstances.

There are too many comments by Marie-Claude in this thread. Not that her comments are inappropriate or uninteresting, just that there are far too many of them.

A lot of sites progressively silt up with entries that treat comments like a social network. Please don't let this happen to the Economist. A maximum of three reactions to any given thread, for example, would not be unreasonable.

I read a bit in the archive of DER SPIEGEL in their articles from the early 80s. It's strange how similar it is all to today.

For example France had problems to compete, and the socialists who came to power nationalized many banks (to allocate the money properly in "investments") and industrial firms to have an "industrial rebirth".

Mitterand was sure that this way France would "overcome the crisis instead of of being enmeshed deeper and deeper as it is the case in countries with conservative Thatcher style leadership."

Doesn't this echo exactly Mr. Hollande?

It was a total disaster for France. This was only 30 years ago. How could the French forget so fast?

Of course I'm a french communist, therefore I support Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

None of us are stalinist nostalgics.

In fact, socialism has always be part of the french culture, from Robespierre to Mélenchon via Louis Blanc and the French Communist Party.

As I hope you are all convinced by self-determination, you have to respect this when you talk about France.
None of us wants a totalitarian dictatorship, we just want to bring realistic solutions to bring a human world.

We are convinced by one thing : If today we may look strange, in some centuries everybody will find very strange that we use to let some people be richer than rich. They will find it very strange, as we can't understand absolute monarchy today.

Ah, the good old days when Robespierre made heads rolls with such democratic aplomb. The definite cure for "you all [who] are too close minded."

French communists claim high and low that they're not totalitarians and in the next breath idolize totalitarian butchers. In case you haven't noticed, French self-determination as you call it eventually applied his own medicine to your beloved Robespierre.

Cap earnings at 360,000 per year? How are traders supposed to pay for drugs and luxury hookers? Doesn't this Stalin-lover know that taking from respectable pimps and drug-dealers to invest in schools and hospitals results in inefficient resource allocation?

If France wants to send all it's rich to other countries it's fine for the rest of us.
Surely the French realise there is a big old world out there and that movers and shakers who create wealth are valuable assets to any economy?
Non? Tant pis

I read about Mr. Mélenchon in the New York Times today and nearly choked on my breakfast. He wants to raise the minimum wage 20% (to what would be $2,200 a month in France), confiscate any income over what would be $470,000 a year in France) and make it illegal for companies making a profit to fire any workers. Apparently, he has also defended the Chinese repression of Tibet (so he’s more a Stalinist Trotskyite than a Marxist Trotskyite), spoken well of Hugo Chavez, and called the USA "The first problem of the world" (This is all from the NYTimes article).

So he's a very dangerous candidate for the French economy (and the world market economy as well), but on the bright side he has taken the light from Marine La Pen. I know that isn't much of a bright side for France though.

We need to dispense with the terms "communism" and "socialism". People hear those words and they think secret police pulling black bags over peoples heads in the middle of the night, when they should be associating them with vastly improved health care, civil rights, and education. I get tired of saying this over and over, but no one on the (legitimate) left admires Lenin, Stalin, Chavez, etc-- these are murderous dictators who rob workers of their power. They make for great straw men to attack when you know nothing about socialist policies, but the reality of leftist ideology has nothing to do with them.

As an American it is pretty shocking to hear that a socialist candidate has any serious support. The fact that the socialist is not the farthest left makes French politics sound like another planet. A planet I very much want to live on.

There's one glitch in your analysis: I believe that over a certain threshold of votes in the first round, which is likely at 15%, Mr Mélenchon will cause the right and far-right supporters to vote en masse for Prez Sarkozy, with a surge of "it's 1981 all over again" conservative, fearful voters rallying round Mr Sarkozy.

This might not help Mr Hollande as much as you suggest and on contrary contribute to his defeat on May 6th in the second round.

mélanchon in power? So why not move to Greece immediately.
In Elsass we don't mind about raising money stupidly if the mad red & socialist are successful by obtaining the presidency. We'll leaving to one of the two border German way or Swiss way of thinkin which is less unconscious economically that as we are in France. I'm sad for my country, the French have forgotten the concept of collective interest, the they prefer to get lost in the meander of the silly uthopie. WAKE UP. "bon sang"

Some of these poor posters that have very little knowledge about the world affairs perhaps from reading only American textbooks are afraid of the French communists. It was Washington pinheads that contributed to the China’ communists ability to destroyed the US dollar at any given time and thus the American economy and you worry about the French communists. You have to listen to China (communists) now because they have you in their palm.

These are the failings of the Washington illiterates and not Che Guevara. BTW Bolivians erected monument on the place where he was cowardly murdered by the CIA. Was not American puppet dictator in Chile that replaced CIA murdered Allende brought to justice? These two examples and many more have open eyes even for Latin Americans – never trust the Washington.

How can communists in France do worse than the Wall Street puppets in Washington?

In this blog our Paris bureau chief reports and comments on the race for the French presidency. The blog is named after the official residence of the French president, an 18th-century palace in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Our election coverage is collected here.